The idea of writing as a therapy is not new. Being able to bare these struggles of the soul on a page could make a person feel better—or worse. My desire to write creates more stress than relief, so I shouldn’t consider it as therapy. When I have ideas in my head that refuse to appear on a page without a fight, tensions definitely increase. When I think about writing I may suffer the delusion that I can produce a work that will touch other’s lives, or at least provide enjoyment. But, when I ask others if they want to read my work, they don’t seem eager to do so.

As a child I retreated to my parent’s bedroom, concealed myself in an overstuffed chair, and plugged my ears, so I wouldn’t hear noise from the outside world when reading. Unfortunately writing requires the same kind of environment for me. When my oldest was a toddler, he played in the room as I typed poetry on the keyboard. At that time most computers were blocky CPUs called towers and these sat on the floor with the connected screen and keyboard on the desk. He quickly learned that pushing a certain button would turn off the screen. I quickly moved the tower on top of the desk because computers back then would sometimes fail if not shut down properly over and over again.

As my children matured, I obtained a real desktop computer and placed my writing desk, so that I could not hear TV or music from the family room. No one messed with my computer, but life became busy enough that most of the little writing I did occurred after bedtime. However, my children did offer inspiration for writing—a phone call from camp to tell me my child had fainted and was in the hospital—led to my first award winning short story. I did not write about my life as a method to deal with the stress, but because this incident provided an exciting plot.

Recently while watching several coming of age movies with my children, who are now adults, we discussed current movies of this type that often have characters wandering through their life and never learning anything as they grow older. I prefer to have at least one of my characters realizing something of value by the time I finish a piece of writing. So, essentially my writing does not provide therapy for me. It is work that gives me a sense of purpose. 

Photo by K.N. Listman